ROY AND HAL AND MARK AND ROSE

Whenever I think of the greatest live performances I've been lucky enough to see, along with Stacey Keach as Richard III at the Folger Theatre and Penn & Teller at Ford's Theatre, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins at the 9:30 Club, all in Washington, D.C. and Tito Puente at the Celebrity here in Phoenix, I also think of Roy Clark, playing Ernesto Lecuona's magnificent "Malageuna" at the Sundome in Sun City. RIP to the funny and unpretentious but virtuoso Clark, who passed on this week at 85.

RIP also to the Canadian classical stage actor Douglas Rain, immortal in the movies as the voice of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, passed on at 90.

Opening this weekend:

Pete and Ellie, childless “houseflippers” in their forties, decide to foster, and then adopt, three kids all at once, a teenage girl and her two young siblings. All three come with behavioral and social issues, and this, combined with the naïveté and inexperience of the new parents, leads to trouble, some of it wacky, some of it serious, in the comedy-drama Instant Family.

Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne both do sweet but never maudlin work as Pete and Ellie. They convey an awakening sense of open-hearted mission as they become aware both of the needs of foster kids and of their own desire to parent.

There are capable supporting turns in the film as well, notably by Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro, who turn a pair of social workers into a low-key comedy team, and by Julie Hagerty and Margo Martindale as the Grandmas, demure and boisterous respectively. Most impressive of all, maybe, is Isabela Moner as the teenage daughter, convincing as a bright, decent-hearted kid who’s also an infuriating problem child.

The director and co-writer is Sean Anders, drawing on his own life for inspiration. Anders’ other credits include the likes of Horrible Bosses 2 and Daddy’s Home and similar broad comedies in the modern vein, and that sensibility finds its way into this movie as well. There are slapstick sequences that feel heavy and contrived, and throw the movie off-balance at times.

But the overall effect of Instant Family is surprisingly moving. What Anders gets right about the experience of coming to parenting later in life, and of parenting a teenager—especially in the terrifying era of social media—feels considerable.

Allowing for the conventions of this sort of mainstream family flick, the degree to which Instant Family doesn’t sugarcoat parenting's challenges is impressive: The language is raw, and so is the guilty candor of Pete and Ellie’s private conversations. So when the movie jerks tears, as it did for me at several points, it jerks them honestly.

I had the opportunity to chat with Anders recently about the experiences that led to this film; check out the interview on Phoenix Magazine online.

Still in theaters:

It’s hard for me to imagine any new version replacing, in my affections, the original 1966 TV version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. That half-hour animated special based on the classic Dr. Seuss children’s book of 1957, directed by the great Chuck Jones and voiced by the great Boris Karloff, was one of the true high points of the holiday season every year of my childhood.

Ron Howard’s laborious live-action feature version of 2000, with Jim Carrey in the title role, certainly didn’t come close to capturing the Seussian magic of the original. Neither does the new animated version, titled simply The Grinch, and featuring the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch. But it has its merits, and it’s better than the Howard/Carrey version.

For the benighted few who may not know, The Grinch is a tall, green-furred recluse who bitterly resents the relentless Christmas festivity of the Whos, elfin citizens of nearby Whoville, and thus decides to steal the town’s presents and decorations, disguised as Santa Claus. It is, of course, a nutty variation on the Scrooge theme, economically unfolded through Dr. Seuss’s inimitable, metrically flawless rhyme.

The new film expands the story in a number of directions, all of them thoroughly gratuitous, for no reason other than to stretch it out to feature length. Most annoyingly, it gives us a psychological backstory for the Grinch’s dislike of Christmas—after the narrator (Pharrell Williams) tells us “please don’t ask why/No one quite knows the reason,” he goes on to explain the banal reason.

He’s no Karloff, but Cumberbatch gives good, snide line readings. Even so, this movie’s Grinch is very watered-down as a villain; his redemption is telegraphed so early and often that it has little impact when it arrives.

This aside, it should be said that the movie has visual wit, and that, as with the TV version, The Grinch’s good-natured dog Max is a very successful character, and that a plus-sized reindeer named Fred is also lovable. It’s a testament to how softened-up this Grinch is that the filmmakers don’t let him be mean to Max.

BUNNY BUSINESS

Hopping into theaters this weekend:

Could Beatrix Potter have imagined a movie adaptation of her Tale of Peter Rabbit with Eminem on the soundtrack?

No, I suppose she couldn't have. She died in 1943, after all, so she probably would have had a hard time imagining Eminem at all.

The question was rhetorical, anyway. That's what we've got, a new Peter Rabbit with CGI bunnies and other cute little creatures interacting with live-action human actors, engaging in broad slapstick and bickering family dynamics and slyly "meta" and "fourth wall" gags, all driven along by popular songs.

Even so, it's a little surprising how much of Potter's 1902 tale survives in this modern-dress version. Peter's siblings and cousin, the encouraging sparrows, Mr. McGregor (Sam Neill), the sieve, the flower pots in the shed, the blue jacket used as a scarecrow, even the grim backstory of Peter's father--these and other elements trace back to Potter's brief but effective heist thriller and juvenile delinquency drama.

But this story line can only take the movie so far. After that, director Will Gluck, who previously helmed the recent modern version of Annie, and his co-writer Rob Lieber concoct a deus ex machina for old man McGregor, then bring in his nephew (Domhnall Gleeson) and heir from London, a control-freak Harrod's employee. This guy goes to war with Peter and his pals as well, but must keep it secret from his neighbor Bea (Rose Byrne), a sweet painter who adores the rabbits.

Some of the battles which follow seem to owe almost as much to the Loony Tunes, if not to Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, as to Potter, and while at times they become a bit tediously repetitive, overall the film is visually deft and light-footed and enjoyably anarchic. Even so, some of the funniest passages are verbal rather than visual, throwaway gags like a store clerk's explanation of the human urge to anthropomorphize animals. The voice cast, led by James Corden as Peter--who also sings a pretty song over the end credits--includes Daisy Ridley, Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Matt Lucas and Sia.

The kids in the audience with whom I saw this film seemed to find it hilarious, and on the whole I was pretty amused myself. I thought it struck a nice balance between edgy mischief and just the right degree of non-sappy warmth. If you remain unmoved by the sight of the rabbits apologizing by inclining their foreheads together, you're tougher than I am.

RAGGEDY ANNIE

Opening today:

Annie—There are plenty of missteps and false notes in this new version of the Broadway musical favorite, reset in modern-day New York. To begin with, the orphanage setting no longer works. The show’s comic villainess Miss Hannigan, here played by Cameron Diaz, is now a bitter, drunken foster mom, which somehow doesn’t have the same menace.

Many of the Martin Charnin lyrics had to be tweaked, while all of the ‘30s-specific numbers had to be dropped entirely, and to make up for this new numbers were added, all forgettable. The movie is badly overlong, needlessly padded with stuff like un-suspenseful chase scenes that add nothing.

On the upside, this Annie, directed by Will Gluck from a script he wrote with Aline Brosh McKenna, starts off well, with a lively opening and several of the show’s best numbers, including the peerless “Hard Knock Life.” Annie’s fellow orphans are spirited, and there are grown-ups who look like they’re going to be bit players but give full-fledged, funny supporting turns, notably Stephanie Kurtzuba as a dazzled social services inspector. The new Sandy, a rescue dog in real life, makes a fine debut as well.

Above all, Quvenzhané Wallis is adorable in the title role. She doesn’t have the brassy Broadway-baby belt usually associated with the part, but she has a sweet voice and she’s as indomitable and assured as she was in the role of Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild. She also has a fine, candid onscreen rapport with Jamie Foxx as Oliver Stacks, this film’s standoffish, germaphobic version of Daddy Warbucks, and this carries the picture past its cheesier aspects.

There are a couple of cute in-jokes, too. A band playing in a club, for instance, is called the Leapin’ Lizards. Best of all, Stacks’ opponent in the New York mayoral race is a progressive incumbent named Harold Gray, after the creator of the original Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip. There’s a special piquancy to this gag if you know the truth about Gray: that he was a Union-hating, New Deal-loathing reactionary, and that he—of all freakin’ people—was a staunch opponent of Child Labor Laws! Apparently he believed there were benefits to a hard knock life.